Every day an incredible number of credit card payments are made around the world, and the number of payments are steadily increasing. The majority of credit card payments are either made in stores using a point-of-sale, POS, terminal where you insert or swipe your credit card and identify yourself with a personal identification number, PIN, or on the Internet using a computer where you enter your credit card details and in some cases also a security code.
A much safer and easier way to make payments would be to own your own POS terminal, by which you could make all your transactions. Unfortunately, a POS terminal is very expensive to purchase and use and you have to pay a fee for each transaction. It is also too bulky to carry around with you, so in reality only a place of business can afford owning one. Therefore, a small card reader, for attachment to the user's mobile phone, is in many cases an attractive alternative. Card readers for attachment to a mobile phone are today commonly known e.g. WO 2012/003892. Those devices can be made very small, and are thereby easy to bring in your pocket.
However, the card readers for attachment to a mobile phone on the market today, support either a chip card i.e. a card with embedded integrated circuits, or a magnet stripe i.e. a card comprising a magnet stripe holding information such as account number, name of user, country code, encrypted PIN etc. However, due to different requirements on different markets it may be desirable to provide a card reader supporting both card types. In POS terminals it is commonly known to have support for both chip card and magnet stripe. Such a device comprises a chip card reader positioned e.g. on the top or at the front of the POS terminal and a magnet stripe reader e.g. embodied as a slot in the upper side of the terminal. The design of those devices is very bulky and not suitable for a carrying around and could therefore not be readily integrated in a card reader for attachment to a mobile phone.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide a dual card reader for attachment to a mobile phone, which supports both chip cards and magnet stripe cards, still being neat and easy to carry around. Furthermore, such a device need to be robust and durable, in order not to break, when kept e.g. in a pocket. A further requirement on such device is that it is easy to use. Attractive design, such as a minimal thickness and a width smaller than the size of the mobile phone is also favorable.
A further problem with existing devices is also that they comprise an internal battery or rely on power from the mobile phone to which they are attached. However, this may be a problem, because when the card reader runs out of power, it cannot be recharged instantly or the card reader will drain the battery of the mobile phone. Hence, a further objective of one embodiment of the invention is be to provide a card reader comprising an exchangeable battery, still fulfilling the requirements mentioned above.